


Give Me Love

by velvetcadence



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angel Erik, Gen, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Poor Erik, Stupid Cupids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetcadence/pseuds/velvetcadence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The birth of his wings is painful, a baptism through feathers and fire, but his soul sings when they finally spread out, freed from its mortal coil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Love

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by Czarnyma. Thank you, darling! (Sorry I strayed a lot from the prompt though) 
> 
> Inspired by Ed Sheeran's [Give Me Love Music Video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOjdXSrtUxA).

11.

Erik’s bow is crafted with care, carved from the words he hadn’t been brave enough to say. Things like _I love you_ and _Thank you_ and _Goodbye_. Every time he shoots an arrow, the feathers of its shaft plucked from his own wings, it stings. The bowstring had been strung up from sentiment, twined with the restless energy of those who wander.

He has scars branded into his skin from the string. When he touches them, he remembers the date and circumstance but not the feeling that came with each mark. He’s troubled by the vague numbness that has overcome his life. Surely even angels must feel something. Erik traces his chest with the blade of an arrow, testing for pain.

The great irony of his life is that he continues to live in this tepid death, handing out love when he cannot even take a crumb of it for himself. Erik takes a deep breath and plunges the arrow into his heart, wondering if it will kill him once and for all.

3.

When Erik takes his first breath, the morgue is quiet. The smell of death is distinct, permeating his hair and hovering about his skin. He stands, knuckles and joints cracking as if waking from a very long sleep. There are bruises on the entire right side of his body, but they are yellowing, healing already. He frowns, trying to recall what happened. His memory remains stagnant, so Erik walks.

Out of the building, into the streets. A new day is dawning, but the city is quiet. Erik opens the door to his nondescript apartment and settles himself on the mattress. His bones ache. He is so, so tired.

Erik sleeps.

4.

The next time he comes to, it feels like his very flesh is burning. Erik squirms on the mattress, reaching behind himself to touch the fevered skin. There are spikes growing on the wings of his back, and it feels like there are vermin crawling under his skin, fighting for freedom. A tip protrudes wetly; he pinches it between his fingers and pulls.

It’s a feather, slick and bloody, but underneath that, it gleams with a preternatural light. Erik lets his fingertips trace over his shoulder blades, willing the rest to come out. The birth of his wings is painful, a baptism through feathers and fire, but his soul sings when they finally spread out, freed from its mortal coil.

5.

He takes to wandering the city at night because the weeping of lonely souls is louder then. His fingers itch with unrealized purpose as he stares at a man and a woman, their hands tentative as they touch each other. They are shy because they are tethered to other people, but their hearts are clamoring for union. If Erik pushes, they will fall together.

He plucks a feather from his wing with a wince, aiming the dart of its tip at the woman.

She goes, and he watches as they disappear behind her door.

6.

There’s a boy. Erik can remember the people of his life from Before, but they are vague memories. Charles, however, he recalls with a strange kind of clarity. There’s something special about Charles he can’t quite pinpoint. It’s the way he wears his cardigans, maybe. And the way he smiles. The way he looks at Erik like he’s not just one of the many cracks in the pavement.

Playing cupid is strange business. The isolation Erik feels is offset by the way people find their way to each other with his help. Sitting with Charles during the day softens the chill that has begun to envelope Erik, the line he’d drawn around himself and the rest of the world blurring at the edges until he feels almost truly alive again.

7.

Erik carves arrows out of broken dreams. The shards are sharp and jagged, useless to him as is. These are the remnants of a life long gone, and thus no longer truly belong to him. They can be used now to further his singular goal: life for love.

Despite this second chance, this one simply feels like a slower death. There’s an apathy that’s settled into him, a gaping chasm where his emotions used to churn like molten rock. He feels empty even as he spots two women making their way merrily down the street, even as he drinks in their bright auras and knows that they can be perfect for one another.

Erik takes careful measure and aims.

8.

A man and a woman. Two women. Two men. Three. Erik wonders if the world knows that human emotion can’t be quantified into their self-made laws. It is something that he had instinctively understood long ago, that people become their own prison. He had forgotten this long ago, but he remembers now. He watches as a child weeps himself to sleep, convinced that he is a sinner because a boy in his class makes his heart hurt.

Erik’s lip trembles. It is not within his power to break this. His feathers are poison, and they can only be purged through time or betrayal. He is cursed this way.

9.

Erik meets Charles in the afternoons. They rarely talk, and even if they did, Erik wouldn’t have anything to say. He had been quiet, even from Before. Charles is comfortable with it, smiling at Erik when the birds come and eat the bread he throws at them. Erik desperately wants to know if he can hold Charles’ hand.

He never asks. They part ways when twilight comes.

10.

One night, his wanderings take him to a club. He feels his whole self thrum when the deep bass resonates throughout the cramped room. They move fluidly around him, shying away from his nature. He teases them with caresses from the tip of the arrow in his hand, cajoling them into a frenzy. If he cannot partake in the carnality of their pleasures he can at least pretend. Like a maestro, he conducts them to play each other, drawing high needy cries, low rumbles, relishing in the gleam of their sweat and the flush of their sex.

He thinks of Charles and wonders if he’ll ever feel anything again.

2.

There are souls screaming. _Love me! Love me! Give me love!_ Amidst the chaos, Erik struggles to live, hanging onto the cliff by his very fingernails.

Life breathes into his mouth. Love scores her nails down his back. His wish is granted.

12.

Hands gentle him into waking, and Charles’ face appears before his eyes. The arrow he had struck himself with is gone. A tear drops from Charles’ eye onto Erik’s chest. Suddenly he is being kissed, lips pressing insistently against his own, a warm tongue sweeping the seam of his lips. Erik’s limbs stop trembling the longer Charles holds him, his body being warmed from the inside out.

He cups Charles’ cheeks with his hands and opens his mouth, remembering desire, remembering feeling. _I love you,_ he whispers, his breath hot against the vivid red of Charles’ mouth. Charles sobs into the kiss as his hands grip Erik by the back of the neck and by the bone of a wing.

_I do too. Far too much, I’m afraid. I’m sorry._

Erik screams as Charles _pulls_.

1.

It’s two in the morning and Erik is tired, but he is free. His night has ended with heavy tips and a relatively peaceful shift—no brawls, no privileged loudmouths—just the customers that frequent the bar in their downtime, people who have already become familiar to him after just a few weeks.

There is a dangerous curve up ahead, so Erik squares his shoulders and slows down. He doesn’t anticipate the shriek of horns or being blinded by headlights and losing control of his bike, slamming his shoulder into something hard and blacking out from the pain.

There is a short moment when he straddles the line between dreams and reality, and the last thing he hears is someone frantically whispering _I love you, I love you, I won’t let you die, Erik, take my wings._

13.

Charles shows Erik how to fly together, to work their wings in tandem. They will be together forever because to be a cupid there must be a bow, an arrow and a pair of wings. Erik thumbs the scar on Charles’ shoulder blades where he had ripped his own wings off for Erik to have, heedless of its consequences.

The skin where they had resewn a wing on his left shoulder is mutilated, scarred beyond healing, but to Erik, it is simply another thing of Charles to love. He is the other half of Erik’s wings just as he is the other half of his heart.

They twine their fingers and smile against the backdrop of the city, looking for lonely souls in need of a little push.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Give Me Love (La Petite Morte Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2073684) by [unveiled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled)




End file.
